Delhi man arrested for murdering friend

New Delhi, March 2 (IANS) A 22-year-old man was arrested for the brutal murder of a friend for his car and jewellery in 2011, police said Friday.

Sanjay Bhattacharya, the mastermind behind the murder, was arrested Friday from the New Delhi Railway Station. His two associates, including a minor, are already in police custody.

Bhattacharya, along with Manish Kumar, around 20 years old, and a juvenile had killed 26-year-old Shrikant Singh July 29, 2011, in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, and escaped with his new i10 car, gold ornaments and cash.

“The victim was friends with Bhattacharya who took him to his apartment in Greater Noida on the pretext of providing him some cash loan. However, after getting him drunk, Sanjay strangled Shrikant with a wire, assisted by his two accomplices and later beheaded him,” said a police official.

“They wrapped Shrikan’ts body in a bedsheet while the head was kept in a bag. The body was disposed of in Kasola in Haryana’s Rewari district while the head, knife, wire and chappals were thrown at a spot beside the Jaipur Highway,” added the official.

They then drove Shrikant’s car to Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, and sold it to Rajdeep Singh Chauhan and received Rs. 50,000 as partial payment.

The body was recovered July, 30, 2011.

The family members suspected the three accused to be behind the murder and the police arrested Kumar and the juvenile who confessed to their crime.

However, Bhattacharya was on the run and police got a tip-off that he was working at a petrol pump in a remote district of Jharkhand.

Upon raiding the pump, police realised Bhattacharya had left for Ranchi to meet his friend as he was in a financial crisis. When the team came to Ranchi, it learnt that he had left for Delhi.

Police got a tip-off that he would be leaving for Jharkhand Friday and was finally arrested from New Delhi Railway Station.